Edward Albee > Quotes

“You're alive only once, as far as we know, and what could be worse than getting to the end of your life and realizing you hadn't lived it?”
― Edward Albee

“What I mean by an educated taste is someone who has the same tastes that I have.”
― Edward Albee

“I write to find out what I'm talking about.”
― Edward Albee

“What could be worse than getting to the end of your life and realizing you hadn't lived it”
― Edward Albee

“Sometimes it's necessary to go a long distance out of the way in order to come back a short distance correctly.”
― Edward Albee

“Martha: Truth or illusion, George; you don't know the difference.
George: No, but we must carry on as though we did.
Martha: Amen.”
― Edward Albee, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

“I said I was impressed, Martha. I'm beside myself with jealousy. What do you want me to do, throw up?”
― Edward Albee, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

“George, who is out somewhere there in the dark, who is good to me - whom I revile, who can keep learning the games we play as quickly as I can change them. Who can make me happy and I do not wish to be happy. And yes, I do wish to be happy. George and Martha: Sad, sad, sad. Whom I will not forgive for having come to rest; for having seen me and having said: “Yes, this will do”. Who has made the hideous, the hurting, the insulting mistake of loving… me, and must be punished for it. George and Martha… Sad, sad, sad.”
― Edward Albee, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

“Dashed hopes and good intentions. Good, better, best, bested.”
― Edward Albee, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

“I am not interested in living in a city where there isn't a production by Samuel Beckett running.”
― Edward Albee

“It's one of those things a person has to do; sometimes a person has to go a very long distance out of his way to come back a short distance correctly.”
― Edward Albee, The American Dream & The Zoo Story

“Good writers define reality; bad ones merely restate it. A good writer turns fact into truth; a bad writer will, more often than not, accomplish the opposite.”
― Edward Albee

“If you have no wounds, how can you know if you're alive?”
― Edward Albee, The Play About the Baby

“The world is a zoo”
― Edward Albee, The Zoo Story and Other Plays

“Martha: Oh, I like your anger. I think that's what I like about you most. Your anger.”
― Edward Albee, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

“Read the great stuff, but read the stuff that isn't so great, too. Great stuff is very discouraging. If you read only Beckett and Chekhov, you'll go away and only deliver telegrams for Western Union.”
― Edward Albee

“Lady, you can’t fuck a metaphor.”
― Edward Albee

“Martha: ... I cry allllll the time; but deep inside, so no one can see me. I cry all the time. And Georgie cries all the time, too. We both cry all the time, and then what we do, we cry, and we take our tears, and we put 'em in the ice box, in the goddamn ice trays until they're all frozen and then... we put them... in our... drinks.”
― Edward Albee, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

“You want to dance with me, angel tits?”
― Edward Albee, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

“You don't see anything, do you? You see everything but the goddamn mind; you see all the little specs and crap, but you don't see what goes on, do you?”
― Edward Albee, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

“And the west, encumbered by crippling alliances, and hardened with a morality too rigid to accommodate itself to the swing of events, must ..... eventually ..... fall.”
― Edward Albee, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

“HONEY: (Apologetically, holding up her brandy bottle) I peel labels.
GEORGE: We all peel labels, sweetie; and when you get through the skin, all three layers, through the muscle, slosh aside the organs (An aside to NICK) them which is still sloshable--(Back to HONEY) and get down to bone...you know what you do then?
HONEY: (Terribly interested) No!
GEORGE: When you get down to bone, you haven't got all the way, yet. There's something inside the bone...the marrow...and that's what you gotta get at. (A strange smile at MARTHA)”
― Edward Albee, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

“Unless you are terribly, terribly careful, you run the danger-- without even knowing it is happening to you-- of slipping into the fatal error of reflecting the public taste instead of creating it. Your responsibility is to the public consciousness, not to the public view of itself.”
― Edward Albee

“George who is out somewhere there in the dark... George who is good to me, and whom I revile; who understands me, and whom I push off; who can make me laugh, and I choke it back in my throat; who can hold me, at night, so that it's warm, and whom I will bite so there's blood; who keeps learning the games we play as quickly as I can change the rules; who can make me happy and I do not wish to be happy, and yes I do wish to be happy. George and Martha: sad, sad, sad... whom I will not forgive for having come to rest; for having seen me and having said: yes; this will do; who has made the hideous, the hurting, the insulting mistake of loving me and must be punished for it. George and Martha: sad, sad, sad... who tolerates, which is intolerable; who is kind, which is cruel; who understands, which is beyond comprehension...”
― Edward Albee, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

“First, I'll kill the dog with kindness, and if that doesn't work, I'll just kill him.”
― Edward Albee, The Zoo Story and Other Plays

“I dance like the wind.”
― Edward Albee, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

“Musical beds is the faculty sport around here.”
― Edward Albee, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

“I am a doctor. A.B.... M.A.... PH.D....ABMAPHID! Abmaphid has been variously described as a wasting disease of the frontal lobes, and as a wonder drug. It is actually both.I'm really very mistrustful.”
― Edward Albee, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

“You...you've been here quite a long time, haven't you?"
What? Oh...yes. Ever since I married What's-her-name. Uh, Martha. Even before that. Forever. Dashed hopes, and good intentions. Good, better, best, bested. How do you like that for a declension, young man?”
― Edward Albee, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

“I think we should all live on the precipe of life, as fully and as dangerously as possible. Everyone should make the assumption that they're going through life only once. Tomorrow we die. Why not take chances, extend yourself? How awful it is when a person comes to the end of life full of regret.”
― Edward Albee